


The Napoleon Solo Affair

by tigeressdion



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Also like beware the rambling plot, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Napoleon, It's about Napoleon's personal journey, M/M, Napoleon Whump, Napoleon backstory yo, Napoleon-centric, Protective Gaby, Protective Illya, There ain't any, These losers care about each other ok, a lil bit, as in, implied depression, just so y'all know, not a storyline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 03:43:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7668793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigeressdion/pseuds/tigeressdion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Napoleon Solo was four, his mother bought him a backgammon set and taught him about luck and how to win.<br/>When Napoleon Solo was twenty-four, his mother died.<br/>When Napoleon Solo was thirty-four, he saved the world and saw his mother again two days later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Napoleon Solo Affair

**Author's Note:**

> Hahaha who knows what this is!  
> Good luck!  
> Thanks also to new-heroes for letting me yell.

Napoleon is four.

  
He's cross-legged on the floor of the sitting room, da's sitting in his chair with a glass of whisky, and ama's washing the dishes in the kitchenette. It's their routine. Da cooks the dinner, they eat it together, ama washes the dishes and Napoleon dries afterward whilst da has a glass of whisky before he goes to work.

  
"Finished!" Ama calls, and Napoleon jumps to his feet and rushes to the kitchenette. 

 

She smiles down at him and runs a hand over his hair. "When you're done, I have a present for you," she says.

  
He loves ama's voice. She doesn't have an American accent, she's from the Basque Country, she says her accent is Basque. Napoleon thinks it's beautiful. He thinks his da's voice is beautiful too. Da's not from the Basque Country, da's from Ireland. His accent makes the words all sound like a melody.

  
"I'll finish real quick," Napoleon promises, snatching the dishcloth.

  
His parents tell him that his voice is beautiful too. They say it's a mix of Basque and Irish just like him, they say that the accents compliment each other. Napoleon isn't quite sure what that means, but his parents sound happy when they say it so it must be a good thing.

  
He does finish extra quick, and he's sitting on the floor again when ama comes in from her and da's bedroom. She's holding a box, and Napoleon knows his smile stretches from ear to ear.

  
Ama sits down opposite him and hands him the box. It rattles slightly, but Napoleon stops himself from shaking it.

  
"What is it?" He asks. His hands are just big enough to hold it at the edges.

  
"Open it," ama says.

  
Napoleon manages the clasp without much trouble, and opens the box. There's white and black triangles painted in it, and there's round little counters and a die scattered across the inside.

  
He hears his da sigh, and he turns to look at him.

  
"What is it?" He asks again.

  
"It's a backgammon set," his da says.

  
"And what's that?"

  
It's ama that answers him. "It's a game. You need a little bit of strategy and a lot of luck to win."

  
"I'll win," Napoleon decides. "Are you gonna play it with me?"

  
Ama brushes her thumb along his cheek. "Of course, Napoleon. I'm going to teach you how to win."

  
"Ainhoa, you'll have our son grow up a sinner."

  
Ama looks over Napoleon's shoulder at da. "It's just a game, Doran."

  
Da grumbles. "Can't believe you're wasting our money on games."

  
"Aita biltzaileari, seme hondatzaile," ama says.

  
Napoleon knows she's speaking in the Basque language, and he recognises the words for father and son, but not the other ones.

  
Da grumbles again and stands up. "Well, I'm going to work. You know, to earn more money for you to waste away."

  
"I love you too," ama says to him, and da chuckles and drops a kiss on her head as he passes her.

  
Napoleon watches with a grin. He loves his ama, and he knows everyone else does too. Da says that she has a special power that means no one can ever be angry with her for long, but Napoleon doesn't know why anyone would be angry with her in the first place.

* * *

  
Napoleon is five.

  
He's on the floor of the sitting room with his backgammon set laid out before him, and he's waiting for ama to come and play with him. Ama's in the bedroom with da. They were talking quietly earlier, so Napoleon supposed they were having a grown-up conversation and he didn't pay it any attention.

  
But suddenly da's voice is loud, and Napoleon flinches. Da's voice is never loud. Even if he's in a black mood, his voice is quiet.

  
Then it gets worse, because ama's voice gets loud too. Ama's voice should only get loud when she's excited, and she starts talking really quick, and sometimes she slips into Basque language.

  
Da and ama aren't supposed to be loud and angry, and Napoleon feels his face get hot and his breath goes strange. His eyes are prickling and then his face gets wet. He scrubs at his face to try and get rid of the tears, but they won't go away and ama and da are getting louder still and his breath is going too quick to catch.

  
Suddenly the bedroom door bursts open and ama and da are standing there, staring at him. A second later they're both on the floor with him, and ama's talking low and fast in Basque language whilst da holds him tight.

  
When Napoleon has calmed down and da's drying his face with the sleeve of his sweater, ama shoots da a fierce look.

  
"This is why I wanted to talk about Obolensky outside."

  
Napoleon feels his bottom lip wobble as ama's beautiful voice is ruined by the sound of anger.

  
Da scoops him back up in his arms. "We'll talk later."

* * *

  
Napoleon is eight.

  
Ama looks beautiful. Her lips are painted ruby red and her ebony hair is curled into a shiny waterfall down her back. Her eyes are lined with black, but the harsh, precise lines have been smudged by her tears.

  
Napoleon hates it when ama cries, but he's crying too and he thinks da would be crying if he'd let himself.

  
"Don't go!" Napoleon says. He grabs at ama's dress as she opens the door, but the material is slick and slips out of his grasp. "Ama, please. I'm sorry. I'll be better! I'll be good, please-" His breath catches and gets stuck in his throat, and when it comes back ama's out the door.

  
He yells and runs out the door after her, skittering down the rickety steps to their apartment, down the street to the road.

There's a running car by the sidewalk and Napoleon pushes past many pairs of legs to try and reach it. But his eyes are blurry with tears and he trips and skins his knee. When he looks up he sees his ama getting in the car, helped by a man in a posh suit. She doesn't look back.

  
"Ama!" Napoleon screams, the noise hurts his throat and that just makes him cry harder. "Ama, come back!"

  
His da finds him like that a few minutes later, and hauls him up by his arm. Napoleon wraps his arms around da's legs and refuses to let go.

  
"When's she coming back?" He demands, face buried in the dusty material of his da's trousers.

  
"When she's hungry," da says, patting his hair. His voice sounds funny. "She'll need me to cook her dinner for her, and she'll come back."

  
It's the first lie his da ever tells him.

* * *

  
Napoleon is sixteen.

  
Everyone knows the war will be over soon, and Napoleon sees his chance to get a slice of the action slipping away like silk through his fingers. More than that, it's his ticket out of the Lower East Side, he's sure of it.

  
He's been working out on the street for hours at a time, taking the mannerisms and wallets of the rich that don't soare a second glance for his wrongly-sized clothes at his too-long hair. During the nights, whilst his da's at work, Napoleon runs with a group of housebreakers and hones his skills and lines his wallet with them. Finally, he's got all the money he needs, and he's going to register.

All that's left is to tell da.

  
"I'm gonna join the army."

  
Napoleon catches his da as he comes in from work in the early morning. His bag's all packed by his feet.

  
Da gives him a quizzical look, like he doesn't quite understand what Napoleon just said. "Are you thick, boy?" Da asks. "The war's as good as over. What's the point?"

  
"I wanna see the world, da. I'm not gonna see it on a janitor's salary."

  
It's a low blow, and they both know it. Napoleon waits for his da to get angry, he gets angry more easily since ama left.

  
"You really want to go?"

  
"Yes, da. I think this might be my last chance." Napoleon shifts on his feet, he's leaving a lot unsaid, but from the look on his da's face, he understands perfectly what Napoleon isn't saying.

  
His da looks weary as he sits in his chair and pours himself a few fingers of whisky. "I can't stop you if you're set on it."

  
"I am." Napoleon nods, eyes straying to the door.

  
"Then go." Da's voice is hoarse, and he's not looking at Napoleon.

  
Napoleon's throat goes dry. "I will... I'll see you, da." He slings his bag over the shoulder and pauses by the door. "Take care of yourself, won't you?"

  
Da snorts and shakes his head slightly.

  
Napoleon takes one last look at the sitting room that doubled as his bedroom for sixteen years, at the kitchenette where his ama would wash up after meals, and at his da, sitting and drinking in his same old chair.  
The door closes softly behind him.

* * *

  
Napoleon is seventeen.

  
He's stealing a painting. He doesn't know the artist, doesn't know how much it's worth or how old it is, but he's stealing it and the thrill he's feeling is like nothing he's experienced before.

  
"Hurry up, Solo!" Smith's voice echoes through the old barn. "It's just a damn painting, shouldn't take you this long to carry it!"

  
"Eloquent as ever!" Napoleon shouts back, hefting the painting under his arm and slipping out the barn.

  
"This the last one?" He asks as he sets it on the cart.

  
Johnson shrugs. "Not as though we're in a rush anyway."

  
Napoleon leans against the cart, tugging at his cap so it shades his eyes. "Do you ever wonder about the shit we take?"

  
"You mean like how much it's worth?"

  
Napoleon smirks. "Kinda. More like, what about who made it, you know. What's its history."

  
A glance at Johnson tells Napoleon he's doubtful. "Not really. 'S long as I get paid, I don't care."

  
"Oh." Napoleon crosses his arms. "Well, to each their own."

* * *

  
Napoleon is twenty-one.

  
He's wearing a repulsively expensive suit, and he's loving it. It's amazing that just by wearing a tailored suit, from Savile Row, no less, the English will accept you immediately.

  
They know, the people he's at this soirée with, that he's not one of them by birth. But there's a saying to do with the rich and criminals being similar, so he thinks of them as his brethren by bond, if nothing else. Napoleon is also well aware that the upper class loves nothing more than to feel that thrill of danger from associating with criminals. As long as the criminals talk like them.

  
If he had to guess, he'd say that at least half the people in this room know he's a thief, but that none of them know why he's here.

  
At that moment, Napoleon excuses himself from his conversation with the charming Duchess and slips away.

  
The stairs to the second floor are made of incredible, polished marble. Napoleon can do more than imagine, as a janitor's son, the maintenance they must require. He climbs the stairs, turns left down a corridor, enters the first door he sees and finds himself in a grand master bedroom.

  
The owners of this mansion have a fabulous collection of artefacts from the Archaic Period, but the best, as always, are off-limits to the public. But there's a sixth century BC Lydian electrum coin that Napoleon just has to see. Given that, in the Western world, the earliest coins are thought to come from Lydia, it seem fitting that one should be his first theft as an official gentleman thief.

  
The coin is in a small glass case on a large, ebony bookcase. When he tips it into his hand it's heavier than he imagined, as though it's carrying its two thousand and five hundred years of its history with it. Napoleon weighs it in his hand for a few seconds, then grins to himself and slips it into his inner jacket pocket.

  
He's just turning to leave when a glimmer of gold on the dressing table catches his eye. When he goes to investigate, he finds a gold signet ring with a two-faced man engraved on it. Napoleon recognises Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and endings… Amongst other things. Now, Napoleon believes in luck, not coincidence, which certainly makes this his lucky day. With a private smirk to himself, he picks up the ring and slides it on his left pinkie finger. He admires it a moment, then moves to the balcony.

  
The balcony is too high to jump down from, but that's not what Napoleon was planning on doing anyway. He noticed an old oak tree with a branch snaking toward the balcony on his way in. The branch is a few feet from the balcony, probably in need of being cut down sooner or later, but for now it serves his purpose.

  
The jump is slightly more tricky to execute due to his fine Cheaney Oxfords, but he manages it nonetheless.

* * *

  
Napoleon is twenty-four.

  
Word of his ama's death reaches him quick enough that he can attend the funeral.

  
He learns that she'd been living in Trastevere, in Rome. Apparently she'd managed to start quite a chain of casinos, all from that first one that Prince Alexis Obolensky had gifted her so many years ago.

  
He wonders if she settled in Rome so that he could find her, if he ever saw fit.

  
Having lived in Trastevere, she's buried in Cimitero Flaminio.

  
It seems his ama made it into high society too, from the look of the people that attend her funeral. To his surprise, Napoleon fits right in, dressed in his sombre, black Isaia suit and Bruno Magli Oxfords. Thankfully, the fact that his eyes are red-rimmed allows him to blend in more with the crowd than less. It seems his mother was much loved in her new life.

  
After the coffin has been lowered, Napoleon aims to slip away. There's too many people hanging around the grave for him to have a private moment. He'll come back tomorrow.

Only, as he's leaving the cemetery he notices an unmarked black car. He keeps walking at a sedate pace, but the car follows him at a crawl, and when he turns into an alley, he's faced by four men in suits.

  
"Gentlemen," he says in Italian, forcing a polite smile, despite the racing of his heart. "How can I help you?"

  
"Napoleon Solo," the man second from the left speaks, also in Italian. "My name is Davide Nicolosi, with SIFAR. These are my associates, Gottleib Leitz with the Gehlen Organisation. Vikenty Sokoloff with the MGB and Dennis Harmon with MI6. We are part of a special task force, specifically created to catch you."

  
He refuses to drop his only chance to escape just yet, so he continues in Italian. "I am sorry, gentlemen, but I do not know who you are talking about. I think you must have mistaken me for someone else. My name is Giuseppe Esposito." He reaches inside his jacket for the fake identity he has ready and waiting.

  
All four men draw guns, and Nicolosi shouts "stop!" just as Napoleon feels himself tackled to the ground from behind. He assumes it's whoever was following him in the unmarked car. His hands are pulled roughly behind his back, and he feels handcuffs snapped shut around his wrists. Then, he's hauled to his feet and dragged to the car, his head still spinning.

  
As he's being herded into the car, another car pulls up and a man gets out. Napoleon doesn't recognise him, and apparently neither do his captors. They raise their weapons once more, but the man waves them away.

  
"I'm Sanders. CIA." He flashes an identity card at them. "Get out of my way."

  
Napoleon assumes they all understand English, or at least the universal body language for 'go away', because they make a gap for him to walk through.

  
"Napoleon Solo."

 

It's not really a question, but he answers anyway.

  
"That's what they keep telling me."

  
Sanders doesn't smile. "You're being taken into the CIA's custody before you're given your jail sentence. Fifteen years, minimum, I hear."

  
Nicolosi begins to disagree, but Sanders shoots him a look and he backs down.

  
"Shame," Sanders continues as he leads Napoleon away. "You could do a lot of useful things in fifteen years, if you weren't in prison."

  
"Is that so?" Napoleon's interest is piqued, and Sanders knows it. He's just thrown a rope to a drowning man after all.

  
"I may well have an alternate offer for you, Solo," Sanders says as he gets back in the car.

* * *

  
Napoleon is thirty-four.

  
He's getting tired of being used by intelligence agencies whenever they need him.

  
Waverly tells them they have several hours to spare until they leave for Istanbul, and Napoleon leaves immediately. He can't help but think that history's repeating itself. First he's forced into working for the CIA in Rome, then, ten years later, he's forced into working for U.N.C.L.E in Rome. This city really has it out for him.

  
It doesn't take him too long to reach Cimitero Flaminio, but he does have to check at the office to find his ama's grave. He never did get to say goodbye properly.

  
There's fresh flowers on her grave.

  
He stands with his head bowed for a moment, soaking in the late afternoon sunshine.

  
"A little bit of strategy and a lot of luck," he says. "But what am I supposed to do when I'm going against my own luck?" He sighs and sticks his hands in his pockets. "I should've left Gaby in that East German chop shop when I saw the Red Peril standing outside. I should've left Peril to drown when I had the chance." He scuffs his shoe, Salvatore Ferragamo Oxfords, into the grass. "Hell, I should've just gotten on the first plane out of Italy when Waverly said we have some time to ourselves."

  
"Oh, Napoleon." A voice with a faint, but familiar, accent takes him by surprise. "What have they done to you?"

  
He turns, and finds himself looking at a woman. She's older now, much older than when he last saw her in person, ten years older than the newspaper clipping photo he has of her in his New York apartment, but she's still beautiful.

  
The only problem is, she's been dead for ten years.

  
"Ama?" His voice is weak, even to him.

  
"Darling Napoleon," she steps forward, reaches up to caress his cheek, but he flinches away.

  
His thoughts fly back to Victoria Vinciguerra. "I heard- Someone said you were- I didn't-"

  
Ama hushes him, takes a step toward him, nearly treads on her grave. "It was the Vinciguerras that told you, I assume?"

  
He can only give a jerky nod.

  
She frowns, her forehead creasing. "Was it Victoria? I don't think she would have delivered my message the way I intended."

  
"Why?" He asks, intending it to sound strong. He hears how lost the word is.

  
"I had to, Napoleon. After I left, I did more than just run casinos. I ended up in the same profession as you. I made myself powerful enemies, and I had to disappear."

  
That doesn't surprise him, but it riles him slightly that she still hasn't apologised, and he finds some of the cold indifference he so desperately needs.

  
"You got me caught, you know," he says, shakes his head at himself in disgust. "I should've wondered how the news of your death reached me so quickly, so conveniently."

  
She reaches for him, tries to take his arm, but he turns away.

  
"It had to be realistic. If you didn't come, my enemies would have known. They would have found me."

  
"Instead, mine found me." His voice is sharp, but that's good.

  
They both fall silent, Napoleon looking across the countless graves, avoiding the look his ama is giving him.

  
"What are you doing here?" He asks at last.

  
"I needed to tell you something," she says. "The Vinciguerras, they weren't just Nazis."  


He arches an eyebrow, but says nothing.  


"They were part of a greater organisation, known as THRUSH. It was for THRUSH they had the nuclear weapons made. It's THRUSH's intent to raze the world to chaos."

  
He huffs out a derisive laugh. "THRUSH? The CIA's known about them for years. They're no threat, a wannabe evil organisation founded by an evil wannabe."

  
"Napoleon, they must be taken seriously. THRUSH is in dangerous hands now, more dangerous than those of the Vinciguerras, and it must be taken down now, before it does any real harm."

  
His ama is speaking seriously, and Napoleon is well versed in talking with liars and thieves, so he knows she's sincere.

  
"So why aren't you and your organisation dealing with them? Why is it my team had to take down the Vinciguerras when they already had access to nuclear weapons? Speaking of which, who is this organisation you're working with?" He tired now, tired of playing games.

  
She sighs slightly. "You won't like this, Napoleon. Just understand that I did what I believed was right."

  
He waits, watches her struggle.

  
"I joined the NKVD. Now the KGB."

  
"The Russians?" His voice is strangled. "You joined the fucking Russians?"

  
It's not the reaction he would have liked to give. It should have been slower, calmer, better.

  
"Obolensky-" He begins to say, but his ama interrupts.

  
"No, not him. It was a few years into building up my casinos, they earnt a good reputation amongst powerful people. I learnt many secrets, and the Russians approached me." Ama is searching his face for clues about what he's thinking. "They offered assistance with Basque liberation, if I joined and helped them."

  
He shakes his head and looks away again. "You've done a sterling job with that, ama."

There's no warmth to the homely word, and he sees her notice it.

  
"Is that all?" He asks, she doesn't reply. "I have to go. I have to work for an agency that I didn't get the luxury of choosing."

  
His ama clutches his arm, creasing the fabric, but he snatches it back.

  
"This suit cost more than your funeral," he snaps. "Goodbye, ama."

  
He strides away, face flushed and hot despite the cooling afternoon air.

 

 

Napoleon wends his way back to the hotel, only to remember with vague surprise that he checked out hours ago. He leaves the foyer and meanders down the street, past countless cafés and coffee shops.

  
"Solo!"

  
From the look on Illya's face when Napoleon turns to see him, it wasn't the first time he'd called his name.

  
The table Illya's sitting at is almost comically small next to his giant frame, but Napoleon passes on the joke in preference of taking a seat at the table. Illya eyes him not quite warily, but not quite with concern either.

  
"Where have you been?" He asks.

  
It's a perfectly innocent question, but Napoleon tenses anyway.

  
"Oh, you know..." He waves his hand aimlessly. "Around. This isn't my first time in Rome, I thought I'd catch up with some old acquaintances."

  
Illya doesn't appear to have any follow-up questions, so Napoleon glances at the book on the table.

  
"What have you been up to? Reading?"

  
Illya nods. He taps at the cover of the book, the text is all in Russian, and Napoleon can read it perfectly well, but he lets Illya talk.

  
"Title translates to 'Dead Souls'," he says. "I have not read it in long time."

  
The conversation pauses as Napoleon orders an espresso, and when he looks back Illya's sharp eyes are on him.

  
"Protagonist reminds me of you," Illya says.

  
Napoleon quirks an eyebrow. "That doesn't sound like it's a compliment, Peril."

 

"He is conman. Liar."

  
"Dear oh dear," Napoleon says. "You really do have a low opinion of me, don't you?"

  
Illya tilts his head moment, eyes flicking between the book and Napoleon. "No. Not necessarily.

  
"You have many masks, Cowboy," he continues after a pause. "I think the conman is one of them. No one can be so shallow as you pretend to be."

  
"We're going to need stronger drinks," Napoleon says easily, brushing away Illya's insight with an amused smile.

* * *

  
Napoleon is thirty-six.

  
The knock on his door is horrifically loud at eight in the morning, especially as they only landed back in America fours hours ago. And some superspy Illya is, when his only response is to grumble and roll over, stealing yet more of the blankets. In an effort to prevent Illya from being woken, Napoleon gets out of bed and hooks his dressing gown from the back of the door, and goes to see who's there.

  
Napoleon recognises the man at the door immediately, and he steps outside, shutting the door behind him.

  
"Solo, you're back," the man, Barry Mulligan, says.

  
Barry Mulligan had been a janitor in the same building Napoleon's father had worked in, and once Barry lost his job Napoleon starting paying him to keep an eye on his father and give him updated whenever he was back in New York.

  
"Very astute," Napoleon says. "How are things, Barry?"

  
"I've been trying to reach you for the last two weeks." Barry says.

  
Napoleon sees that his fingernails are bitten short.

  
"It's about your da," Barry continues, eyes fixed firmly at a point past Napoleon's head. "Solo, I'm sorry. He passed away."

  
Napoleon blinks. Then he runs a hand over his hair. The vain part of him notices that his hair has defied its styling and is curling.

 

"You're certain?" He asks.

  
Barry makes eye contact for the first time since Napoleon's seen him, and nods slowly. "I'm sure. I went to the funeral and everything."

  
Napoleon barks a laugh, mutters something about that being no real assurance. Then again, his father was never the big-picture person that he or his ama are, so he tells Barry he won't be needing services anymore and slams the door in his face.

  
Seconds later, Illya steps into the sitting room to find him leaning against the door, his head in his hands.

  
"What's wrong?"

  
Napoleon lowers his hands and looks at Illya, a sudden wave of despair crashing over him. "I'm sorry. Illya, I'm so sorry."

  
Illya's frowning as he approaches Napoleon, as though worried he'll spook him. "Why are you sorry? What did you do, Cowboy?"

  
"For the things I said to you. At the café in West Berlin. About your father, your mother." Napoleon hears his voice crack. "That's not me, that's not who I am. You know that, don't you?" He can barely stand how desperate he must seem now.

  
Illya catches his face in his hands, tilts his head up so they're really looking at each other. "I know you, Napoleon. That was one of your masks, I know." He waits quietly for Napoleon to become closer to coherent before he asks again, "what's wrong?"

  
"At the door." After only three hours of sleep, Napoleon isn't surprised he's tired, but the heavy weight of bone-deep exhaustion takes him by surprise. "It was a man about my father. He's dead."

  
"You were close?" Illya asks.

  
They tend to not talk about family. Gaby and Illya haven't any left, and they assumed that it was the same for Napoleon. Of course, he was always close-mouthed about the matter.

  
"Once," Napoleon says. "I had people keep an eye on him. I had money sent to him. But I couldn't go near him, I don't think he would've wanted me to." He heaves a sigh. "Aberats izatea baino, izen ona hobe."

  
Illya doesn't recognise the language, he can tell. "What is that?" He asks. "Irish?"

  
Napoleon had once revealed that his father was Irish, after he bought an expensive bottle of Irish whisky to share with Illya, who had turned it down in favour of his chess game.

  
"Basque," Napoleon replies. "Once my mother taught him how to say it, it was his favourite saying."

  
Illya presses his forehead Napoleon's for a few seconds. "I am very sorry about your father, Napoleon," he says when he pulls away.

  
Napoleon doesn't answer.

  
"You are still tired," Illya says, but Napoleon doesn't think he's really part of the conversation anymore. "Come." Illya takes his arm, gently, and leads him back to bed.

 

 

The next few days are a blur to Napoleon. He alternates between sleeping and staring at nothing. Illya holds him through all of it, and coaxes him into eating and drinking every so often.

  
Three days later Gaby visits, she sits close to him on the couch, close enough that he can feel the warmth of her body, and she tells him about her own parents. About her brave mother and her kind stepfather, and how she felt after they died. It helps more than Napoleon could possibly have anticipated.

  
"When your father died- your real father, I mean, how did you feel?" He asks her.

  
"I felt like you do now," she tells him, taking his hand. "But I got over it. We cannot change the past, Napoleon, and absent fathers are easier to grieve than good ones."

  
"I think my father was a good father," Napoleon confesses. "I just don't think I gave him much of a chance to show it."

  
Illya sits down next to him, sandwiching him between himself and Gaby. "Good father would have done anything to protect to. You joining army would not have stopped good father from seeing you."

  
"Perhaps you're right," Napoleon admits. It's a hard thing to fathom.

  
Gaby squeezes his hand. "You took care of him as best you could. You were a good son when it mattered."

 

 

Later that night, Gaby puts on a record. Napoleon considers commenting on her choice of music, but the smooth jazz actually fits mood rather well so he lets it rest.

  
He's sitting on the floor of the living room, his back resting against Illya's legs whilst Illya runs careful fingers through his hair. Gaby drops a kiss on Illya's head when she passes behind the couch to sit in the armchair she always claims as her own. She settles her bare feet on Napoleon's outstretched legs, a glass of wine in her hand.

  
They stay like that, the three of them, even after the record finishes and their glasses are empty. The three of them, tangled together with no wish to leave.

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it to the end, cogratulations, honestly. I hope you enjoyed it. Kudos and comments are always appreciated!  
> Come find me on tumblr: no1mothmanfan  
> Some notes:  
> Ama- Basque for mother.  
> Aita biltzaileari, seme hondatzaile. Translation: A thrifty father begets a squandering son. - A Basque saying.  
> Prince Alexis Obolensky- A Russian prince, an enthusiast for backgammon. I have no evidence that he ever gave anyone a casino, but he was around at the right time and place, so I decided to have fun.  
> Cimitero Flaminio- Flaminio Cemetery, the cemetery people are buried in from the Trastevere area.  
> SIFAR- Italian secret service of the time.  
> Gehlen Organisation- West German secret service of the time.  
> The MGB- Russian secret service at the time.  
> MI6- The most appropriate British secret service I could find for the time.  
> NKVD- The name of the Russian secret service at the time that Ainhoa would have joined.  
> Basque Independence- The Basque people in Europe suffered greatly at the time. Look it up for more detail if you're interested.  
> Dead Souls, by Nikolai Gogol. Look it up for more detail, it's pretty interesting.  
> Aberats izatea baino, izen ona hobe. Translation: It's better to have a good name than to be rich.- A Basque saying.


End file.
